Columns, Opinion

GAGNE-MAYNARD: Cold War II? Not Exactly

Politics on a domestic stage can often seem petty, and depending on how much CSPAN you watch on a daily basis, downright boring. Although labeled as political enemies of sorts by the news media, not many people seem to analyze the every move and nuance in body language of U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner.

For example, when the two men meet, shake hands and continue to shake hands for 30 seconds as cameras flash, the image of faux-compromise is pixelated and carbon copied, and the exchanged quips exist possibly to keep the awkward moment from seeming too staged.

Yet meetings between foreign heads of state and U.S. presidents can be immensely entertaining, if not the stuff of historical legend. A part of me chuckles and floods with interest whenever I see Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet. Maybe it’s Putin’s canine-like gaze, his calculating grin or my inability to remove the image of Putin riding shirtless on horseback in the woods behind his Russian dacha from my mind (look those images up online, they will not disappoint).

It is essentially a given at this point in time that the leaders of the world’s superpowers almost always have their super-powered egos attached to their agendas whenever they choose to meet.

After the 1961 Vienna summit in which former U.S President John F. Kennedy engaged in lengthy talks with then-USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev famously noted how heavily his famous temper and egotism weighed on Kennedy’s psyche. He described Kennedy as looking “not only anxious, but deeply upset… I hadn’t meant to upset him. I would have liked very much for us to part in a different mood. But there was nothing I could do to help him… Politics is a merciless business.”

The clash of egos and titans can sometimes lead to compromise, yet more often than not, relationships between leaders are one-sided, stuffy and disingenuous. For example, meetings between former U.S. President Richard Nixon and former Chairman of the Communist Party of China Mao Zedong in 1972 led to a relative improvement in Sino-American relations. On the other hand, the 1961 meetings between Kennedy and Khrushchev, which Khrushchev labeled as a relative success, effectively solidified the movement toward the building of the Berlin Wall.

The wall that the Vienna summit built came down in Berlin 25 years ago on Nov. 9. It has been almost 43 years since “Tricky Dick Nixon” became the first American president to visit the People’s Republic of China. On Nov. 28, it will be the 71st anniversary of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first meeting with Joseph Stalin.

Obama had his own share of high-profile meet-and-greets, as he traveled to China to negotiate a potential landmark climate and trade deal with the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping on Wednesday. The Obama administration has repeatedly stressed its new foreign policy and resource shift toward Asia, and the trip is in many ways an assertion of Obama’s own competence as a leader.

Luckily for us outside spectators, Xi is perhaps the most forceful and dynamic leader in terms of personality that China has had in decades, and meetings between the Chinese premier and Obama were just as compelling as one would expect them to be.

But unlike previous meetings between Obama and Xi, this meeting came at a time when much more is at stake. True, the two leaders of the two largest greenhouse gas-emitting states came to a tentative agreement for a landmark climate deal. But with China’s recent crackdown on foreign journalists and media sources that included blocking The New York Times, among other large American news sources, from publication in the country due to its reporting on the government repression of protestors in Hong Kong and on government corruption scandals that have severely rattled the ruling Communist Party, the meetings had a contemptuous air to them.

In many ways, the United States’ “shift towards Asia,” China’s surging economy and growing national media criticisms of the United States have heightened tensions and competition between the two countries. Such a competitive spirit has also drawn Xi closer to the one foreign leader who Obama seems to loath the most: Vladimir Putin.

But another Cold War this is not, despite what former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev might tell you. The three countries may have their differences in political and ideological opinions, but the interconnectedness of the global economy, among other things, will hopefully prevent competition from becoming a conflict.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Obama, when “asked about the negative portrayal of him in the Chinese press…said it came with being a public official, in China or the United States. ‘I’m a big believer in actions and not words,’ he said.” But in this situation, it will be interesting to see whether actions or words will be Obama’s preferred tool of diplomacy. Either choice could be his savior or his downfall.

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